News Main Menu

College of Education Discipline Inquiry (DI) Block Field Trip

College of Education Discipline Inquiry (DI) Block Field Trip

The College of Education took students on a recent field trip, the popular Penn State Waste Tour. The goal of this field trip was to help students understand how each of the different disciplines, such as math, science, social studies and language arts, all can overlap. This field trip was to help illustrate how these disciplines can not only be related, but they can be seamlessly connected.

A group of College of Education students, instructors and supervisors broke new ground for the College by taking a unique field trip that looked to build how educators integrate subjects in and out of the classroom.

According to Alicia McDyre, instructor in the College of Education, the reason this field trip was groundbreaking was because it was the first time disciplines of math, science, social studies and language arts were intentionally integrated."Our motivation was spearheaded from our DI block leader, Andrea McCloskey, assistant professor in the College of Education," said McDyre. "She mentioned at the beginning of the semester that she would like for us to think about integration among the disciplines so that our students see the courses connecting to one another and not as separate entities."

"We also wanted the students to 'see' and 'experience' integration, and not just to hear about it," said McDyre. "Many of them will come back from their school experiences and tell us that they do not see science or social studies. We are trying to explicitly show them how science and social studies may be seamlessly connected to language arts and math curricula."

"Taking Al's recycling field trip was an excellent way to not only show them what is happening in their student community at Penn State, but also to show them how they can use a field trip to incorporate various disciplines while promoting student choice in their classrooms," said McDyre.

"I feel this will impact the students and teachers that our students are working with when they student teach or teach on their own by providing them with an inspirational experience, scaffolded with ideas and artifacts, that they can use within their teaching careers," said McDyre.

"I think many of our students were impacted by learning about the power of student voice on their own campus, and the far reaching, trailblazing initiatives and efforts that have resulted from students asking questions about food waste," said McDyre.